Silsby's Family Speaks Out: She Felt 'Burden' for Mission Work

Father Says 'We Better Pray for a Miracle'

By

Jeffrey Ball

Updated Feb. 6, 2010 1:58 a.m. ET

TWIN FALLS, Idaho --
Laura Silsby,
raised in a family steeped in religious missionary work, has led a life of big dreams and hard realities.

For Ms. Silsby, the 40-year-old leader of a group of 10 Americans who have been charged in Haiti with child abduction, trying to start an orphanage in the Dominican Republic was perhaps her grandest ambition yet.

"Laura was raised in a missionary's home and just felt the burden for mission work," her father,
John Sander,
said in an interview Friday. "It's not the big, fancy, fallutin' churches," he said. "It's the mission work."

Haiti's Orphans

She spent much of her childhood moving with her family around the U.S., following her father, a denture-maker who has served as an ordained elder, essentially a pastor, to communities around the western part of the country as part of the Wesleyan Holiness Church.

One of three children in her family, Ms. Silsby was born in Farmington, New Mexico, where her father was working with a community of Native Americans. Within two years, the family moved to Pasadena, Calif., where her father worked with an inner-city church. After that, the family moved to Twin Falls. They have lived in various parts of Idaho since.

Her father currently operates a business making and installing dentures in Twin Falls, the Magic Valley Denture Center. A stand in the office's waiting area on Friday displayed small wooden boxes and paintings and signs with messages such as "The Lord is My Shepherd" and "God Bless My Family" -- all crafts from Haiti, a country where Mr. Sander himself has done missionary work over the years. The items were on sale; a small wooden box was priced at $5. "All proceeds go directly to orphanage," said a handwritten sign by the items.

Like their father, Ms. Silsby's brother and sister run small businesses in Idaho. Her brother,
Jonathan Sander,
also is a denture-maker, working out of a small storefront in the center of Buhl, the town about a half-hour drive west of Twin Falls where he and his parents live. Ms. Silsby's sister, Kim Barton, runs a gift shop in Kuna, a suburb of Boise, Idaho, about a 2 1/2 -hour drive northwest of Buhl.

Ms. Silsby's ambitions, however, led her to bigger pursuits in business and in missionary work. She left Idaho for college, graduating in 1991 from Washington State University with a bachelor's degree in business administration. After moving back to Idaho and getting married, she worked for several years for Hewlett-Packard Co., a job in which she traveled frequently, her father said.

Later, she founded an Internet personal-shopping business, Personal Shopper Inc., which is now housed out of two suites in a Boise office park. She created the business in part using computer skills that she had gained at Hewlett-Packard, said
Steve McMullen,
a longtime friend of the family who lives in Meridian, Idaho, a Boise suburb.

More

For several years, her business performed well, friends and relatives said. In 2008, after getting divorced, she and two of her three children – the oldest is an adult – moved with their live-in nanny into a comfortable two-story house in a new subdivision in Meridian.

Chris Wentzel,
who lives next door, said the Silsby family had a blue Lexus convertible and a dog named Bentley.

"She thought her business was really going to do well," her father said. "I'm sure she was hoping against hope everything would work out."

Over the past two years, Ms. Silsby became involved in the Central Valley Baptist Church, a congregation in Meridian with an active international mission program.

She began working on an idea to create an orphanage in the Dominican Republic for Haitian children. She was motivated in large part by exposure to the plight of Haitian children through her father, who, earlier this decade, visited Haiti several times to perform mission work.

Last July, Ms. Silsby traveled to the Dominican Republic for 3 ½ weeks. She "saw horrible slums and conditions -- things that caused her lots of alarm," said her sister, Ms. Barton.

While in the Dominican Republic, Ms. Silsby looked at land with an eye toward arranging to buy it to build an orphanage, said Mr. McMullen, with whom Ms. Silsby discussed the trip.

By that time, Ms. Silsby's business was struggling, several family members said. Nevertheless, "she was hoping that would turn around in the near future," said Ms. Barton, and "she had real reasons to think things would turn around soon." Ms. Barton declined to elaborate.

Ms. Barton said her sister planned to use her own money as a major piece of investment in the orphanage. She also solicited donations for the effort. In November, back in Idaho, Ms. Silsby and two colleagues incorporated a nonprofit group, New Life Children's Refuge. It sought donations to create an orphanage in the Dominican Republic.

A document by Ms. Silsby describes ambitious plans for the nonprofit, including an orphanage for up to 200 children and an associated school. The idea, the document said, was to "equip each child with a solid education and vocational skills as well as opportunities for adoption into a loving Christian family."

But that concept was aspirational, Mr. Sander said. "It was just in the making – just in the plan," he said.

In mid-December, Ms. Silsby's house in Meridian was foreclosed on, and she and her family moved into a rented home in the area. Her business continued to slow, her parents said. Late this week, Personal Shopper's offices were locked and dark.

A few days after Christmas, with her children under the care of her former husband, Ms. Silsby went ahead with a previously scheduled trip to the Dominican Republic and Haiti for a week, said her mother,
Adonna Sander.
Ms. Silsby was making contact with families in Haiti who wanted to give up their children for what they thought would be a better life in an orphanage across the Dominican Republic border, Ms. Sander said.

After the Jan. 12 earthquake struck, Ms. Silsby and nine other Americans prepared to head back to the Dominican Republic. A few days before they were to leave, Mr. McMullen met with Ms. Silsby and Mr. Sander, her father. "She told me she was going to the Dominican Republic and Haiti because the need was so great," Mr. McMullen said. "I told her to be careful – have a safe trip."

Arriving in the Dominican Republic on Jan. 23, the group spent several days driving in and out of Haiti daily.

Their goal, Ms. Sander said, was both to gather up children who they thought were orphaned in the earthquake and to collect children who weren't orphans, but whose parents wanted to hand them over in hopes the Americans would provide their children with a better life.

Ms. Sander said her daughter's group had a signed document from the Dominican Republic's government authorizing them to bring the children over the border, in addition to signed authorizations from parents.

"There were no kidnapped children," Ms. Sander said. "The parents willingly signed papers" authorizing Ms. Silsby's group to take their children to the Dominican Republic. "They're saying, `Take this child.' "

But on Jan. 29, when the Americans loaded the children into a bus and tried to ferry them into the Dominican Republic, they were stopped by Haitian authorities at the border and detained.

On Thursday, they were charged with child abduction.

Sitting in his Twin Falls office Friday, Mr. Sander shook his head and pondered what fate confronts his daughter and her colleagues. "I don't know," he said. "We better pray for a miracle."

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